Thursday, February 25, 2016

Robert Feldstein, Seattle’s Director of the Office of Policy & Innovation, holding out the silver bullet, or as he clarified “the silver buckshot,” for how Seattle had forced development.Seattle, he explained, had got both sides in a room – both developers and [affordable housing] advocates. They may take some time to agree we were told, and there was lots of room for disagreement between these “adversaries.” So what was the magic solution this group advocated that the Bay Area embrace? Mandate forced up zoning. It was an incredulous moment. Never did Feldstein seem to mention any discussion of representation of homeowners and existing residents.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Displacement of Thousands will occur all over the Bay Area in Priority Development Areas. In Marin, the Highway 101 Priority Development area for urbanization includes all land within 1//2 mile of Highway 101 from Sausalito to Novato Narrows. This include tens of thousands of families who may be subject to displacement due to urban development.

Major Changes May Come to Bay Area Planning As MTC and ABAG Move Toward Merger

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) are responsible for housing and transportation planning for the Bay Area, including the controversial "Plan Bay Area" mandate. Now there's talk of merging the two agencies, with a study underway on how that could be accomplished. But critics argue that the merger process lacks transparency, and that a consolidated agency will take decision-making out of the hands of local communities. We'll discuss the benefits and drawbacks of a potential merger.

Sometimes the best way to deal with an adversary is to go behind enemy lines and find out what they’re thinking. So today, together with Susan Kirsch, I attended the ABAG and MTC hosted event “Calling the Bay Area Home: Tackling the Affordability and Displacement Challenge” at the Oakland Marriott. The Marriott is an impressive venue. Attendees were provided with muffins, cake and Starbucks coffee for breakfast and an assortment of lunch boxes – this was no Plan Bay Area public meeting. Our regional transportation and housing planning bodies, MTC and ABAG, had truly rolled out the red carpet for this select audience.

While not up to Oscars standards, in regional political terms, the cast was star studded. The North Bay was well represented with Jake Mackenzie, ABAG vice chair, and Rohnert Park Vice mayor resplendent in a Famous Grouse rugby shirt just in case his strong Scottish accent was insufficient to drive home his characterful identity. Also in attendance, were Marin Supervisor Steve Kinsey, Napa County Supervisor and former ABAG president Mark Luce, Novato Mayor Pat Eklund and supervisor candidate Susan Kirsch, with whom I carpooled to the event.

So Where’s ABAG’s Forum for Homeowners?

What Susan and I found most remarkable was how special interest groups of affordable housing advocates and developers had their own dedicated forum laid out at a 4 star hotel. Where, we asked, was the forum for the other major stakeholders – the homeowners and residents whose taxes paid ABAG and MTC’s salaries and office rent? Where, we asked, was our forum also paid for on our dime – the one that might be called “Calling the Bay Area Home: Preserving our quality of life and protecting local control”?

All we the residents can look forward to is another Plan Bay Area cattle call where we line up like sheep to have 2 minutes or less to speak our viewpoint, or submit our letters – we’ve seen that movie before and know it doesn’t end well.

A gravity defying highlight had to be when Robert Feldstein, Seattle’s Director of the Office of Policy & Innovation, concluded the event – holding out the silver bullet, or as he clarified “the silver buckshot,” for how Seattle had solved the issue.

Seattle, he explained, had got both sides in a room – both developers and [affordable housing] advocates. They may take some time to agree we were told, and there was lots of room for disagreement between these “adversaries.” So what was the magic solution this group advocated that the Bay Area embrace? Mandate forced up zoning. It was an incredulous moment. Never did Feldstein seem to mention any discussion of representation of homeowners and existing residents.

Commercial Linkage Fees

One possible solution offered was “commercial linkage fees”. This is where fees are imposed when a new company comes to an area so that a corresponding amount of affordable residential development can be funded. South Bay representatives were often outspoken on this topic.

Mountain View to the Rescue

A councilor from Mountain View proudly announced that they would be increasing the housing stock by 50%. I wonder how many of the city’s resident’s are aware or even agree with this policy, let alone understand the impacts on traffic and public services, and the certain increase in high rise buildings?

A Salvo of Sound Bites

There were great sound bites that underscored the affordable housing challenge – this was framed as the issue of the day – but references to many important topics were absent: drought, increasingly miserable traffic congestion, overcrowded schools or unaffordably high taxes sure to be worsened by imposing more subsidized (affordable) housing.

Oakland’s Mayor Libby Schaaf explained to the audience that between 2010 and 2014 half a million private sector jobs had been added to the region, yet only 54,000 housing units had been built. She did make the most sensible statement of the entire event saying, “We cannot build our way out of this problem”. But this message was quickly lost as the forum progressed, with heavy representation by the building lobby.

ABAG Fires Back

ABAG’s new president, Julie Pierce, seemed intent on playing a reverse buzzword bingo, using critics' terms to defend ABAG's policies. We were told“We are a diverse Bay Area, it’s not a one size fits all…one size fits all doesn’t work” – cunningly twisting resident’s original concern that ABAG was imposing a one size fits all policy of high-density transit oriented development with Plan Bay Area. She concluded by saying that “local control is still really important”.Developers & Advocates Push for “Carrots & Sticks”

A recurring theme throughout the conference was to link transportation funding to cities' acceptance of growth. Nowhere did there seem to be recognition that…

some locations already have acute transportation issues;by drying up transportation funding, cities are forced to raise taxes just to maintain road and transportation infrastructure.

Instead, we heard repeatedly that more transportation funding should be shifted to One Bay Area Grants - known as OBAG. Repeatedly, I heard chants that cities that refused to accept their “fair share” of new residents should be denied transportation funding. I’ve witnessed this first hand with the imposition of the Civic Center Planned Development Area (PDA) the effectiveness of this carrot and stick policy.

Bob Glover, the executive officer of the Building Industry Association, even went so far as to directly state that "carrots and sticks" were needed to accommodate future residents - a phrase I have used in a prior article about Larkspur . He advocated that OBAG funding should be extended to help fund building new affordable housing. The builder’s advocate told us that the Bay Area really needed 1.2 million units, but had struggled to build only 500,000.

Glover exclaimed exasperation that those elected officials who had advocated development had found themselves voted out or recalled.What One Tool Would Help Us Solve the Affordable Housing Crisis?

A panel of the willing was asked “what one tool would help us solve the affordable housing crisis?” – the panel’s answer: reform the California Environmental Quality Act. Exempt infill from CEQA. CEQA represents one of resident’s last lines of defense against development that would have adverse impact on quality of life and the environment. We were shown a 14 story tower block in Oakland by one speaker, who was frustrated that it had taken 2 years to push through this high-density behemoth because of CEQA.

The Unfair Wealth Accumulation by the Middle ClassesBlame was laid at the feet of homeowners – we were told how those who had purchased a home in the 1970s were “sitting pretty” with a huge amount of equity. The solution? A property transfer tax. We were told how zoning had served to protect the middle classes interest. An economist flown in from the East Coast reinforced the idea that zoning served as a barrier to economic mobility. Remarkably, this economist was also the only person who called out the lack of representation of residents and homeowners at the meeting – a welcome observation seemingly overlooked by organizers and many other attendees.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Marin County Sheriff testifies that strangers with unruly dogs will overrun Marinwood Park if Marinwood doesn't have a leash law. In my view, it was completely inappropriate for an armed uniformed officer to provide advocacy at a public meeting. Apparently he was called in by someone to "maintain the peace" . The board must have been concerned about the public reaction that is overwhelming against changing the current leash law ordinance. Did they think we were going to cause a riot? Who called in the Sheriff for security? Is this a bit of an over reaction?The Sheriff's Department does not enforce dog leash laws. That is left to the Marin Humane Society. The officer should have told the public this. He should have refrained from comment while on duty and in uniform. He is welcome to make unofficial remarks as a private citizen.

Bill McNicholas and Ray Day bring petition and letters to the Regional Water Quality Control Board in Oakland 2/22/2016

We gathered over 100 signatures on Saturday at the Marinwood Farmers market on 2/20/2016

Marinwood, CA: Two members of the Clean Up Marinwood Plaza Now! citizen oversight committee, Bill McNicholas and Ray Day of Marinwood, bring a thick file of letters, petitions and scientific data to challenge the Remediation Action Plan for Marinwood Plaza. The plan submitted by Geologica on December 29, 2015 fails to fully identify the extent of the toxic plume, lacks scientific rigor, has testing inadequacies and relies on a scientifically inappropriate means to clean up the site called Monitored Natural Attenuation. Over 100 people signed the petition over the weekend to ask the Regional Water Quality Control Board to immediately remove the toxic hotspots on the site while a new plan is created and further testing and remediation of the plume continues. All active remediation was halted in 2011 when it was thought that a new buyer would assumption the liability for the cleanup. The property remains in limbo due to the costly and unknown nature of the cleanup. Once the site is cleaned up development can commence.

Marinwood Plaza is the only commercial viable location for a grocery store and other retail due to its convenient access to Highway 101. It is our town center. This site also has other toxic issues with MTBE and Benzene and is home to a high powered microwave antenna farm making the site unsuited to residential structures. The community welcomes affordable housing in the style of Rotary Village in Lucas Valley and encourages developers to submit projects that are sensitive to land use and healthy for families.

The last thing the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area needs is to let the Metropolitan Transportation Commission amass more power.

MTC is the regional mega-agency that allots state and federal transportation dollars to projects. Its director, Steve Heminger, is an empire builder who, among other claims to fame, is squandering bridge toll money on a $256 million real estate deal in San Francisco -- now 53 percent over budget -- and has failed in an oversight role for construction of the Bay Bridge, which is riddled with cracked bolts and failed welds.

Now Heminger and Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors President Dave Cortese, who chairs MTC's board, want to unilaterally swipe the land-use planning function from the Association of Bay Area Governments, another mega-agency representing the same nine counties. ABAG's issues are environmental, waste management and others that cross city and county lines -- including land use.

It is a blatant power grab, abusing MTC's position as the pass-through agent for about a third of ABAG's personnel costs. Heminger is threatening to hold this $4 million hostage unless ABAG gives up its planners. His board should put a stop to this financial bullying, not condone it.

Unfortunately, while some city officials in the South Bay are concerned, it's hard to stand up to the agency with power to prioritize the transportation projects their cities need.

MTC and ABAG are told by the state to work together on regional planning, and they should. Transportation and land use should go together. The agencies overlap in other areas as well and should consider merging.

But this calls for careful evaluation, in public, that should be led independently. For example, the boards now are made up of appointees from city councils and boards of supervisors. Should board members of a consolidated agency be directly elected? If not, is there a way to better empower local representatives to stand up to entrenched agency staff?

Heminger and Cortese say taking over ABAG's planners is a matter of "consolidation." This would be in the sense that Russia "consolidated" Crimea from Ukraine.

In response to questions, Heminger wrote tellingly, "these different organizational styles were more than a nuisance" during recent drafting of the latest joint regional planning document. He doesn't like to waste time on the niceties of planning. "MTC is more action-oriented and project-based," he wrote, "while ABAG is more discussion-focused and policy-based."

Hmm. Building projects without thoughtful planning. Isn't that how the South Bay got to be such a sprawling, traffic snarled mess? How's that working out for us?

Stop the MTC blackmail and let the public in on how, and to what degree, ABAG and MTC should be consolidated. (Without the quotation marks.)

About SaveMarinwood.org

Our community is what we make it. Marinwood-Lucas Valley is on the eve of a fateful decision by the Marin County Board of Supervisors to designate our community with 71% of all affordable housing in unincorporated Marin. If built to plan it will swell our community by 25% and add 600-1000 school children to the Dixie School District. Since affordable housing developments pay virtually no taxes, the community will have to pay for the $6 million to $10 million annually estimated to educate these children. Our total budget for the Marinwood CSD is $4.2 million dollars. Clearly it will have a severe impact on our community.

We support a fair allocation of affordable housing in our community that is sensitive to land use, is fiscally responsible, healthy for the families and integrates diversity within our community.

Unfortunately, planners, politicians and political insiders made their plans without us.